


JohnLock One-Shots

by IsabellElle (sabeea)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Masturbation, Military Kink, One-Shots, sad chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:10:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5694229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabeea/pseuds/IsabellElle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short pieces, all Johnlock, mostly porny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Please, John.

**Author's Note:**

> Because everyone here is so supportive, I've decided to post some of my shorter pieces. Thanks for reading!

Sherlock rarely begs. I think that’s why it’s so hard to say no to him when he does. “Please,” he’ll say, and my self-control will melt. I’m used to the demands. But every time he says “please” is just like the first time, when he asked for The Woman’s camera-phone, and every time I’m just as powerless to refuse.

“Please, John,” he said to me earlier today. “Please, please.”

That’s right, he begged for mercy three times. Take that, Irene Adler. Of course he didn’t have to beg three times. I was already giving in the first time. Still. The Woman can suck it. (Not literally, of course. It’s all mine, thanks.)

I love making him ask. It’s affirmation that I’m not the only one who wants this. The other day he initiated for the first time. “Please, John? I need you. Please.” Of course I said yes. Oh God yes. What kind of heartless bastard would I be to say no to that.

I love making him beg. It’s so rare to see him out of control. In every other situation, he knows exactly what’s going on and what he can do to change it. But when we’re together, it’s topsy-turvy and I’m the one who knows what he’s doing. Three continents of experience, and Sherlock is new every time. “Please, John,” he’ll say, not even knowing what he needs. But I do.

I love when he asks, because he tells everyone else what they should do. But when he asks me, when he says “Please, John. Please,” he’s treating me as an equal. As well he should, because I know the places on his body that will turn him into a trembling mess.

I love when he begs, even if it’s not necessarily in so many words. When he just keens, a wordless moan that tells me everything I need to know. When he tugs my hand or mouth or cock to where he needs it. When we’re moving together and everything is perfect.

I love him.


	2. Night Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets home drunk from a pub night. Predictability ensues. It's Johnlock porn, what do you expect?

I’ve just had a good night out with Greg at the pub, but as I climb the stairs to my bedroom on the second floor, I find myself inexplicably sad. I’ve spent most of the night whinging about Sherlock’s annoying habits – the chemical experiments, the bits of anatomy in the fridge and microwave, the damn deductions – but now I’m actually kind of missing him. It makes no sense, of course; I’ve spent most of the day with him and the rest complaining about him, but I suppose I’m getting used to him. And to his lanky limbs, the way he musses up his hair and turns up his coat collar to look cool. The way that, when he turns quickly in the Belstaff, it flares out and shows just a glimpse of his arse.

Ok, I’m obviously not totally sober. The room is tilting a bit, and my ears feel like they’re on fire, and I’m thinking of Sherlock Holmes’ arse. His totally fantastic bloody arse. I grope my way to the bed, sliding down my jeans and pants on the way there. Now I’m just in a jumper, but it’s way too hot for that, so that goes too. T-shirt – fine. And I wish I had a dressing gown, which makes me think of Sherlock’s, the clinging silk that billows out when he jumps from the seat of his chair to the floor, then settles around his body in a way that makes me wish I were the robe. Too drunk. I can’t think this way about my flatmate.

Except . . . well, who’s to know? Even Sherlock will never deduce what is going on in my head, and if he can, well, I’m drunk. Isn’t that just a bloody fabulous excuse for everything?

So I let my hand wander, and before I’ve even seemed to move, my hand’s on my dick, and it’s already half-hard. So what if I pretend that it’s Sherlock tugging me off? So what if, in my mind, it’s Sherlock pinching my nipples through the thin fabric? And so what if the thing that gets me really hard is imagining my flatmate naked, plunging his own fingers into his depths, opening himself for me?

I can practically taste him, the salt and sweat and soap, can hear his voice mumbling “god, yes, John, yes,” can nearly feel his body heat radiating towards me from where he pants, begging for it.

I see myself removing his hand, slick with lube, and placing it on his cock, where he pulls achingly slow, his arse pushing towards me. I can feel myself placing the tip of my own cock at his entrance, which clenches, trying to pull me in. He’s opened himself just enough that he’ll feel the burn, but not too far; he’s still tight around me, and my world shrinks to just him and me, moving in synchronized rhythm. I push in, little by little, and every bit takes my breath away as I claim him and am claimed by him. I lean down, and he becomes even tighter, impossibly so. Our lips meet, just brushing, and then he reaches up and pulls me down, his long fingers wrapped around the back of my neck, and I kiss him for real this time, deeply and thoroughly. And finally I’m buried to my balls, and there are two things that I want more than anything in the world – to never, ever move from this place and this moment, and, desperately, to move. He makes the decision for me when he rolls his hips, because I nearly lose control. Barely hanging on, I pull out, thrust inward and upward, and something like a scream issues from his lips directly into mine, so I do it again and again, ecstasy plucking at every nerve on my body. I knock his hand from his cock and pull in time with my thrusts, and he’s gasping for breath and making little moans, and I shout out his name, half in warning and half too late, and he’s coming with me and I feel it hit my chest and splash down to his.

There’s some part of my mind that knows it’s over, but before I can do more than remove the messy t-shirt, I’m falling asleep, into drunken dreams that seem a continuation of the fantasy.


	3. Night Terrors (and how to stop them)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our sad boys, comforting each other.

Explosions – fire – blood – screams –

I wake, my throat raw, a scream still lingering in the air. I’m coated in cold sweat, tangled in sheets so that I can hardly move. It takes all my willpower to untangle them instead of panicking and trying to rip them away from my body. Right then. A glance over at the clock – it’s three in the morning and the flat is quiet. I wrap an afghan around my shoulders and creep downstairs, avoiding the fifth step because it creaks, and I don’t want to wake Mrs. Hudson or Sherlock. I try to breathe normally. Start the electric kettle, fetch a tea bag from the drawer near the fridge, decide not to have milk because my nerves are already shot and whatever is in the fridge will hardly help calm them. Cut a large chunk of gingerbread from the cake Mrs. Hudson brought up yesterday. The kettle hums, then hisses softly as it heats. The familiar movements and sounds calm me a bit. While I’m waiting for the water to boil, I head down the hall to the bathroom, splash some water on my face. I’m now freezing my arse off, because I’m wet and the flat is barely seventeen degrees, so I head back to the kitchen with its hot water. The kettle boils and switches itself off.

I’m pouring the water into a mug when he pads silently into the kitchen. “Can I have some, John?” he asks, and I jump, splashing scalding water down my pajama bottoms and onto my foot. _“Jesus Christ, Sherlock!”_ He hands me a towel, and I mop up what I can. While I pour a cup of tea for him, he goes to the fridge (I avert my eyes) and fetches the milk. I nod, hand him a piece of gingerbread. We go out to the living room and sit, a companionable silence between us. I in my afghan and sweat- and tea-soaked pajamas, and he in his duvet. The gingerbread is gone before I speak. “You all right then?” He gives a brief nod, and I half expect that he’ll remain silent, but a moment later, he opens his mouth. “Night terror. Irritating side effect of trauma.”

I get it. Silence washes back over us. He slides down in his chair, his knees jutting out. An ankle extends from the duvet for a moment, hooks mine, and draws it back. In this position, I fall asleep. My dreams stay far away.

When I wake up, he’s gone. There’s a case, and for three days, I sleep in snatches, too exhausted to have nightmares. But when the case is over (turns out that the suspect was actually the supposed victim in stage makeup), the night terrors return.

This time, he’s already making tea when I get downstairs. Without a word, he holds out a mug to me, and we sit, again, in comfortable silence, sipping tea. This time, he speaks first. “Bad dreams?” he asks. I nod. “Afghanistan.”

When the tea is finished, I press my cold bare feet to his shins, under the edge of the duvet. A half-smile appears on his face, and we fall asleep.

This becomes a ritual over the next two months. Whenever there is no case, which I’m starting to think is annoyingly often, we meet at two or three in the morning, drink tea, and fall asleep in our chairs. It’s a comfort, and makes up, in part, for being so rudely awakened by the dreams.

In the second month, it becomes difficult for me to sleep without feeling his knees press against mine. A week later, I’m awoken at one in the morning by a quiet knock on my door. Sherlock stands outside, holding two cups of tea and looking paler than usual. Silently, I open the door wide and beckon him in. He sits in the bedside chair while he drinks his tea. I lean against the headboard. After perhaps half an hour, he opens his mouth. “Moriarty,” he says, in a voice that sounds hollow and cold. A moment of silence. “Can I stay up here tonight?” I agree, of course. He refuses to move from the chair, but when he falls asleep, slumped over the arm, I manage to move him to the bed. I have difficulty sleeping that night, but not out of fear of night terrors. I hold myself stiffly, staying on my half of the bed, scared of what he’ll do if I touch him, even accidentally.

The next night, I am the one who wakes early. I make tea, then knock gently on Sherlock’s door. He opens it, takes a cup from my hand, wraps his long fingers around my wrist, and draws me inside. I sit on the end of his bed, facing him, one foot on the floor. We drink our tea in silence, and then I stand to go back upstairs. As I turn, he grasps my arm and gives a gentle tug. “Stay.” It’s not a command, but a plea. How can I say no? He moves over, making room for me. It’s the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years.

When I wake in the morning, he’s curled up against my back, one hand on my hip.

Then there’s a case, and for nearly a week we move in sprints, running around town from a crime scene to the morgue to New Scotland Yard. I sleep in my chair in the living room, and Sherlock doesn’t sleep at all. When it’s finally solved (the hotel manager framed a janitor), I can’t help but dread going to bed on my own. The nightmares have been kept at bay by adrenaline and Sherlock’s presence, and they’re certain to come back when I’m alone in my room. But I force myself to leave Sherlock briefing Lestrade in the living room, and I climb the stairs and crawl between my cold sheets. I can’t sleep, so I listen instead to the quiet murmur of voices from the floor below. Lestrade bids Sherlock goodbye, and leaves, and I expect silence to fall, but instead I hear pacing. That is unlike Sherlock. Usually, after a case, he crashes. The pacing stops, I hear water running, and I know that he’s taking a shower to unwind. Twenty minutes later, there are steps on the stairs outside my room, steps that skip the creaky fifth stair, and then a pause. A soft knock on the door. I open it, shifting from one foot to the other to keep my feet from getting too cold. There’s Sherlock, looking uncertain and with wet hair. I gesture for him to come in, and he does. The movement seems to reassure him of something, because he no longer hesitates, but crawls into bed. I’m the one who is unsure now, until he impatiently pats the sheets next to him. I comply, and reach out to turn off the light. Turning back, I let my eyes adjust until I can see the faint reflection of the streetlight in his eyes, and he seems to be looking directly at me, his head pillowed on one arm, the other resting between us. I mirror him. Our hands are an inch apart. Suddenly, his eyes crinkle in a smile, and he moves his hand a quarter of an inch so that it’s touching mine. I smile back. His eyes close, and moments later I follow him into slumber.

For all intents and purposes, that is the end of our sleeping in separate beds. For the first time since being discharged, I have no night terrors for two weeks in a row, and neither does Sherlock. From a purely practical point of view, it saves us loads of time, since we no longer have to get up in the middle of the night and move. I try not to think about the other points of view.

It’s too good to last forever, though, and a few weeks later, I wake up mid-scream. Sherlock is instantly awake and propped on an elbow, stroking my sweaty hair back from my face. Before I know what I’m doing, I have buried my face in his chest and am breathing deeply. Sherlock, to his credit, takes this in stride and even drops a kiss on the top of my head. When I wake again, the morning light is streaming through the window, and I’m in his arms. Safe.

A few days later, I’m woken by Sherlock crying out in his sleep. I shake him awake, and his eyes fly open. He gasps for breath. I hold him close, and when I think he’s asleep again, I kiss his forehead gently. But he’s not asleep, at least not completely, and he tilts his face up to mine. I almost think I feel his nose brush mine, but that has to be a mistake. Then it’s _not_ , because we’re breathing in the same space, and he moves his nose against mine again, and I can feel the heat from his face. It seems like minutes pass while we lie there, unmoving, and then his lips are on mine, because _of course_ they are, and it’s warm and soft and perfect. I want it to last forever, but then my primal brain takes over, and our mouths move against each other, and the world stops. For a few seconds, and a few eons, we kiss, holding each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	4. The Eulogy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Right, so this one is kind of sad and has no porn at all, but I watched The Reichenbach Fall again, and this is what happened.

After The Fall, John shuts down. He can’t seem to cry, and he walls off all the emotions that he feels threatening to come crashing down on him. Stamford gives him some “funeral pills” that help, that make his body and mind go numb and empty. He eats mechanically and sleeps a little when Stamford tells him to. Harry comes by with a bottle of clear liquid, pats him sympathetically on the shoulder, and leaves. He pours half of the liquid down the drain, then changes his mind and drinks the rest. He spends the rest of that night on the floor near the toilet. Stamford comes by the next morning, surveys the scene, and says nothing about it. John is, in some deep buried part of his mind, grateful for this.

Three days after The Fall, he finds Sherlock’s cigarettes, and chain-smokes them, sitting in the window of the flat, blowing smoke out into the street. He coughs, and is fairly certain he can feel his lungs blackening, but he doesn’t stop until they’re gone.

Four days after The Fall, Stamford gives him an extra dose of the pills and a pile of clothes, then gently pushes him towards the washroom. When he emerges, he is dressed in black and Mycroft is there, eyeing him dispassionately. With a snap of Mycroft’s fingers, Anthea appears, and for once John couldn’t care less. Anthea straightens his jacket, re-ties his tie, while John stares blankly ahead. Mycroft’s hand descends on John’s shoulder, surprisingly heavy, and steers him down the stairs and out of the front door.

Later, John has a faint memory of flashbulbs and raised voices, but he ignores them and gets into the waiting car. Mycroft slides in beside him, and he is faintly aware of Mrs. Hudson in the passenger seat. There is little to be said on the way to the funeral. At the church, they once again walk through crowds of journalists, and the little part of John that is awake to the world around him is relieved when they reach the quiet of the chapel. Just inside the doors, Mycroft holds him back while Mrs. Hudson and Anthea continue. “You don’t have to speak,” he says quietly.

“I do, though,” John tells him, the words coming out cottony and distant.

The gathering is small. Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Molly. Stamford, though John suspects his presence is more to do with John than Sherlock. Lestrade and Molly sit as silent as the closed casket beneath the altar. Mycroft fidgets with his walking stick, looking as solemn as ever. Only Mrs. Hudson weeps, though Molly’s eyes are red and she looks tired. The chaplain gives a short speech about dust and ashes, and the inevitability of death, and then Stamford gives John a small push towards the lectern. There is an expectant silence.

John looks at them all, gathered in one place for the first time without Sherlock, and it hits him that Sherlock will never be here with them again. He’ll never play the violin, or scare off one of John’s futile attempts at a relationship, or ransack the flat for cigarettes. Never again.

“Sherlock Holmes –“ John begins, and his voice cracks. “Sherlock was the best man I’ve ever known, and I’ll miss him more than I thought possible. He – he was Sherlock, and now he’s gone.”

Mrs. Hudson sobs. John tries to draw breath, but can’t, and suddenly Stamford is there, taking him by the arm and guiding him back to his seat.

Mycroft stands and says a few words, and then the chaplain leads a prayer. They stand, and file out of the chapel, out into the grass and to the hole in the earth where Sherlock is laid to rest. John is handed a shovel, and tosses the first clump of soil onto the casket. Mrs. Hudson clings to him, and cries.

They drift away, one or two at a time. Mycroft is the first to leave, with Anthea joining him at the edge of the graveyard. Molly and Lestrade squeeze John’s arm before they walk away, and finally Stamford escorts Mrs. Hudson back to 221B. John is left with the bulldozer and the gravediggers, and even they finish their job and leave. It begins to get dark, and John can feel the pills wearing off. He sits, cross-legged and exhausted, in front of the tall dark stone that is just so _Sherlock_ , and he feels ready at last to give his eulogy.

“You were so full of miracles, Sherlock,” he says. “Even from the very beginning, when you found me or I found you or however it happened. You saved me, Sherlock, because I hated what I was becoming. You took me away from one battlefield that haunted me and gave me a safe one, one where you kept me safe. You took a fucked-up soldier and made me a doctor again. That was your first miracle.

 “Then you worked miracles every day. You knew everything, you could deduce anything, and no matter how many times I said it, it was never enough. You were amazing, brilliant, unbelievably wonderful. And you were an arse about it, too, but even that was clever and impressive. I never thought there were such people, people who were good at everything they put their hand to, and I was right. There aren’t people like that. There was only you.

“You healed me, took away my limp. Like magic, that was. You even, as your smart-arse brother pointed out, took away my tremor. You made me young again, erased the damage that the war had done.”

There is a pause, and John catches his breath, half-laugh and half-sob.

“I didn’t think it would be you, you know. I suppose you know this, but before I met you I was seriously considering eating my gun. And then you saved me, but I thought that if death came back for one of us, it would be for me. It has no right to you, Sherlock. If it would bring you back, I’d die myself.” He laughs bitterly. “Hell, I’m thinking about it so I can join you. But you’d say that’s ridiculous, because we won’t be together even then. We’d just be dead.”

John tries to gather himself, takes deep breaths. “My point is, Sherlock, I was so alone. And I owe you so much. You gave me miracle after miracle, and I suppose it’s unfair to ask for anything else. But I’m going to anyway. There’s just one more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t be… dead. Just for me. Just…” his voice trails away. “Please.”

Finally, the wall in his mind breaks down, and the _feelings_ flood in, and John doubles over in pain, his head on his arms, sobbing. Wordless keening emerges from him, and disintegrates into the cold air around him.

John’s not sure how long it’s been when he finally cries himself out, but he sits there for another long moment, wet and tired and cold, and then draws on his military training, from what seems like years ago now, and stands, gives the gravestone one last look, and marches away, left hand clenched in a fist to keep from shaking.


	5. Super short Johnlock one-shot 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Super short, from a tumblr prompt that was about Mrs. Hudson walking in on the boys dancing (sorry I can't be more specific, I'm not sure where the prompt is or I'd link to it).

Mrs. Hudson came slowly up the stairs, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. She could hear violin music, a beautiful wordless melody that nearly broke her heart, and assumed it was Sherlock. She reached the doorway, eyes on the tea tray, and was about to call out when she looked up. And nearly dropped the tray. There, in the middle of the room, her boys were in each other’s arms, slow-dancing. John’s head was on Sherlock’s chest, and they were staring at each other so intently that she may as well have been invisible. Quietly, she set down the tray in the doorway, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t rattle too loudly and disturb them, and sneaked back down the stairs.

Half an hour later, the violin music ended. Mrs. Hudson bustled back upstairs to see if they wanted their tea reheated, but as her head reached the first floor level, a smile bloomed on her face and she crept quietly back down. They were still there, only now they were kissing. Properly snogging, in fact. She could hardly keep from dancing in the kitchen, her hip be damned. Both her boys were back, one from the dead, one clean-shaven, and now they were properly together.


	6. Super short Johnlock from prompt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This prompt was a tumblr thing, for non-specific OTPs. "Say something. Anything." Plus Johnlock... equals this. 
> 
> Also, military kink.

“Say something. Anything.” A pause. “Sherlock?” An even longer pause. “Sherlock, I swear to god I will pinch you until you squeal. What do you think?”

 

We were going undercover at yet another military base, and I had dressed up in my old fatigues. More importantly, I think, I’d gotten my hair cut, nearly buzzed off. This was inspired by Sherlock’s reaction to my first attempt at disguise, which was to glance up from his paper, glance back down, and comment “You look like a hobbit.” So I’d re-dressed in civilian clothes, gotten my haircut, and bypassed the living room in order to put on my fatigues. Since this was not the first time he’d seen my uniform, but it was the first time he’d seen me with the shorter hair, I’d deduced that the hair was getting the reaction. He was rubbing off on me. Ha.

 

In any case, this reaction was far more satisfying, initially, but became somewhat mortifying-slash-worrying when he kept staring at me, without blinking, his mouth slightly open. Aaand now it was also creepy. “Sherlock!” I snapped my fingers in front of his face, and he blinked and closed his mouth, swallowed visibly.

 

“Very convincing, John,” he said. “Well done.”


	7. There's Something About Mary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is kind of a weird one, because Sherlock isn't actually in it, but believe me, it's still very much Johnlock. Word of warning: If you don't want to read about Mary, skip this chapter.

On the new assistant’s first day, John noticed her immediately. Not just because she was pretty, which she was in a controlling sort of way, or because she was new, but because she had a way of utterly filling the room, as though she were the only person in it and knew it.

It reminded him of something – ok, someone – but he tried not to think about it.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello, Dr. Watson,” she said, smiling. Her expression was warm, but John shivered anyway. Something about this woman was shaking his three-continents confidence.

Mary was the one to ask him out. It’s not that he didn’t want to ask her, but she was so damn intimidating. Every time he tried, he got a dry throat and had to rush off for water, during the process of which he always lost his nerve. So when Mary asked him, in a straightforward way that threw him off guard, he was somewhat relieved. He said yes, of course, and they went out for drinks.

Mary was the most forward girl he’d ever met. She kissed him at the end of the night, as he was dropping her off at her flat. She even invited him upstairs. He didn’t refuse, obviously. Her taking-control tendencies carried right into the bedroom. John tried a trick with his pinky that had always brought sighs of pleasure, but she just slapped his hand away. “What are you doing?” she asked. “That does nothing. Do this instead.” And she demonstrated a different technique. His confidence shaken once again, John obeyed.

 

The relationship progressed with surprisingly little input from John. He didn’t mind – in fact, was pleased that it could be that easy. The thought occurred to him that because of the simplicity, this might just be the one. Of course there were little setbacks. In the bedroom, for instance, John often had trouble performing. But Mary had a foolproof way of dealing with that little problem, and when he took her from behind, it was hardly a problem at all. And there were all the benefits of being in a relationship that John had forgotten about. For six months, he’d been letting things slip. He’d often forgot to shave, or wore creased shirts with stains or holes because there was simply no one there to remind him. Some days he had just lacked the energy to leave the flat.

Mary was good for him, he told himself. She never let him sulk for days at a time. “You’re a doctor,” she would say. “People need help. So go help them.” She had no patience for what he refused to call depression. And she always caught him before he left with half his face unshaven, or with a stained shirt.

 

He stopped going to Ella, because she kept pointing out _reasons_ that he liked Mary. He didn’t need that.

He stopped going out with Stamford, because Mary didn’t like it, and because Stamford reminded him of other days. Not better, just other.

His world shrank down to just Mary, and when she was happy, it worked well. When she got angry, though… Well, it didn’t even have to be at him, but he could practically see the danger radiating from her eyes. He learned how to minimize these episodes, though. She couldn’t be distracted, but he eventually figured out that by whole-heartedly agreeing with her, he could calm her down. And it goes without saying that he never gave her cause to be angry at him. He’d been wary of that ever since she’d nearly broken the arm of a patient who was rude to her. As it was, he’d had to bandage a sprain and apologize profusely to avoid a lawsuit. It had been amazing to behold, though. Mary had twisted the poor man’s wrist so quickly that he barely even saw how it happened. It was all John could do to stop himself from kissing her there and then. And the way she snarled at him! Hot. John wanked to that for weeks, trying not to wonder if there was something wrong with him.

 

Sometimes, when she didn’t know he was there, John saw a look in Mary’s eyes that he couldn’t explain. A look that terrified him, if he was going to be honest with himself, which he tried not to be. It was a far-off gaze, one that smacked of memories, and one that reminded him of the soldiers with whom he had once worked. Not the shell-shocked ones, though. No, this was a look that Mary shared with the soldiers who _enjoyed_ war, who were certain of their side’s rightness and the other side’s wrongness. It was a look that John had hoped never to see again, and he tried to forget that it ever appeared in Mary’s eyes.

 

John didn’t ask himself if he was happy with Mary. He couldn’t, because asking that question would mean answering the question, which in turn would require that he compare his life to the past, and he couldn’t do that. Not because the past was dangerous, just because he was a man who lived in the moment and to whom the past was irrelevant. He was satisfied with his life with Mary, and if that was all, at least it was something.

 

John walled off three-quarters of his life, and tried to forget that it had ever existed. And Mary filled what was left. She was his everything, and if sometimes he had dreams of a tall, dark-haired man, they were only dreams. And if he occasionally pretended that the lips against his were pale instead of red, the eyes inches from his own closed eyelids were the color of new leaves in spring, didn’t all men have fantasies of other partners? It was perfectly normal.

And if he was wounded, well, he’d been in a war, hadn’t he. Not all wars left scars you could see.


	8. Dear John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock writes a letter to John on the morning of the wedding.

Dear John,

You’ll never see this letter, which means that I may as well be honest. I’m high right now, as my handwriting may attest. Also, as the very existence of this letter may attest. Don’t look at me like that. It’s your _wedding day_ , and as sanguine as I may appear to Mrs. Hudson and hopefully to you and Mary, I am well aware that things are going to change. But I don’t want things to change. I like the patterns that our life has fallen into. I like the way things are, and Mary’s going to ruin it.

You know she has secrets, right? Worse than mine, I think, because you know all of mine and you don’t seem to mind. Of course, maybe you won’t mind hers either. It’s all because of that stupid emotion of _love_. Remember how stupid people are when they’re in love? They do stupid things. Like getting married.

I’ve got my speech all worked out. There are some good bits, I think you’ll like it. I’m going to tell everyone part of what went through my head when you asked me to be your best man. I’m not going to tell anyone the last part, though. The part where I thought _Why can’t Mary be your best man and we’ll get married instead?_ Or the part where I wondered _is he trying to hurt me by making me be there when he leaves? Is this revenge for when I left him?_ And yes, I’m aware that that is sentiment best reserved for stupid people in love.

Today, I’m more sorry than ever that I left. I did what I thought necessary to protect you, but if I hadn’t left, maybe you wouldn’t have met Mary. Or maybe you wouldn’t have been so vulnerable as to fall for her. Her and her tricks. But it’s too late for what-ifs and maybes. You’re marrying Mary, and you’re making me stand by as you do.

If I didn’t care so damn much, I’d tell you not to do it. As it is, I cannot pretend to support it, but for your sake I’ll pretend it’s a matter of principle. _Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock_ , my brother’s voice is saying in my ear, more nasal than ever. I know that, Mycroft! Damn you! But when it comes to you, John, I am willing to be at a small disadvantage.

If it wasn’t obvious before, it should now be clear that I’m on something. It’s the only way that I can be there for you today. And I wouldn’t disappear on you today, I wouldn’t do that to you, John Watson.

So to conclude this letter that you’ll never see, I will beg your forgiveness for whatever foolish behavior (sentimental or unsentimental) I exhibit today. And I beg your forgiveness, too, for not stopping this when I had the chance.

Yours always,

Sherlock


End file.
